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How to write catchy email subject lines

You want people to engage with the content of your campaign, but with so many companies vying for peoples’ inbox attention, it can be difficult to raise that open rate. A catchy subject line can make all the difference.

Your subject line serves as the first impression of your email marketing campaign. While a poor subject line may leave your email lost in a potential customer’s crowded inbox, an alluring one will serve as your virtual foot in the door with readers.

With so much riding on the first impression, the process of writing your subject line may seem daunting, but by using Acyba’s built-in features and by using a few simple tricks, you can easily write a winning subject line without breaking a sweat.

Make It Personal

Personalization is a timeless way to increase your campaign’s open rates, and AcyMailing’s tag system makes the process fast and easy. Even if recipients know an email is part of a campaign, personalizing a subject line will get your message noticed.

Use your customer’s full name. Although it’s appealing to sounds friendly and informal by only using your customer’s first name, research shows that using your customer’s full name actually increases open rates. As they say, we love the sound of our own names, so the more there is, the sweeter it sounds.

Make It Time Sensitive

People want to be efficient while skimming their inboxes. Therefore, they may prioritize emails that seem time-sensitive over others that can be put off until later. Although this won’t work for all your content, it can be a great way to improve the open rate on those critical messages. If you have a message that requires your reader’s immediate attention, don’t be afraid to tell them.

Incorporate words like “important” and “urgent”. These words attract your reader by showing that your content is time-sensitive, encouraging the reader to open your email now instead of putting it off until later.

Choose words like “alert” over phrases like “last chance”. While both “alert” and “last chance” imply time sensitivity, research shows that “last chance” has a significant negative correlation with a campaign’s open rate, while “alert” has a positive correlation. Unlike “alert”, phrases like “last chance” turn off potential readers by implying that they have already received the content of the email, making it less enticing to open.

The recommendations above all tap into the concept of Fear of Missing Out, also known as FOMO. This is a sentiment that is easy to trigger, but it takes time and dedication to fully understand all of its ins and outs.

Make it Important

Although you know your content is important, you need to convince the reader it is too. Keeping these rules in mind while writing your subject lines will ensure that your reader is as grabbed by your campaign as you are:

CAPITALIZE. Although it should be used sparingly, capitalizing your subject line is a sure way to grab your readers’ attention. Research even shows capitalizing your entire subject line can slightly increase your campaign’s open rate, but the improvement is only slight compared to the impact of good word choice.

Use words like “announcement” or “breaking”. These words are statistically shown to attract your potential reader’s eye. They’re attractive to readers because they “announce” that your email contains something new and exciting.

Make It About What The Reader Wants

You’re more likely to grab your readers’ attention by making your subject lines about what you can offer the reader rather than what they can provide you with. Just because you are leading a fundraising campaign, doesn’t mean you need to lead with that your subject line has to start with a request. Actually, research shows that it shouldn’t.

Lead with words like “offer” or “invitation”. People like to feel that they’re receiving something exclusive, like a special offer or invitation. Therefore, incorporating these kinds of words into subject pique the interest of potential readers and encourage them to open your constant.

Avoid words like “fundraiser” or “donate”. Although your readers care about your cause and want to support it, they are likely inundated with requests for money. You should leave these kinds of words for the body of your email, and instead, use your subject line to introduce the perk that your reader will get from supporting your cause.

Copywriting is insanely complex. Very often, businesses will avoid hiring specialists and choose to assign copywriting tasks to people that don’t have the necessary qualifications to understand the subtle peculiarities of the craft. If you choose to do that, make sure to do your fair share of research and study the basics of becoming a copywriter/writer for your email marketing needs.

Make it Complimentary

Everyone loves to feel recognized and appreciated, and it can never happen enough. Even if a recipient is not the subject of the compliment, a subject line of appreciation can be intriguing enough to get them to open your email, and the craving for appreciation can even lead to increased future engagement.

Show your gratitude with a “thank you”. Research shows that incorporating “thank you” into your subject line will significantly increase your email’s open rate. Thanking your subscribers will ensure that those who engaged feel recognized so they continue engaging in the future, and will impress those who have yet to contribute.

“It can be argued that simply using ‘Thank You’ as a subject line will most certainly entice your readership to open the email. The idea that somebody isn’t inquiring anything, but rather showing their appreciation in an email they sent can on its own increase your open rates considerably.” — Kristin Savage, marketing aficionado and a writer at WritingJudge.

Conclusion

Crafting catchy subject lines is a quick and easy way to improve engagement with your next email marketing campaign. It doesn’t have to be difficult nor time-consuming. In the end, the secret to a catchy subject line all comes down to word choice.

The wrong word chance may cause readers to skim past your campaign, while the right words can make it pop, significantly improve the chances of your readers accessing your content. Your words matter, so you want to choose the right ones.

Diana Nadim is a writer and editor who has a Master degree in Marketing. She combines her passion for writing with her interest in research and creates thought-provoking content in various fields. Besides working as a contributor writer for BestEssayEducation and WowGrade, Diana also runs her own 3to5Marketing blog.
Follow her on Twitter.

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